Moulded plastic containers are often used for storing recyclable materials such as paper. In many instances, it is preferable that the containers have lids which can be locked.
Plastic moulded containers normally have thin walls and lids. This fact presents challenges for mounting locks to such containers. In many cases, an external pad locks is used which extends through holes in the container. Such locking systems have the disadvantage of having a separate lock, which can easily be lost or misplaced, rather than having a lock permanently mounted on the container.
Locks, such as drawer locks and swivel locks, are intended to be mounted on thick walled containers. Drawer locks typically have a lock cylinder and a mounting structure at the end of the lock cylinder. The length of the lock cylinder typically closely matches the thickness of the container. To mount a drawer lock, the lock cylinder is inserted through a hole in the wall of the container and the mounting structure is screwed directly to the thick wall.
In cases where swivel locks have been mounted to thin walled containers, metal spacers and other extraneous pieces of hardware are required to adapt the lock to be mounted to the thin walled container. Such extraneous metal pieces must be riveted or screwed on, with the resulting danger of rusting, bending and breaking. Drawer locks have not previously been mounted to thin walled containers.